Every dog has its day, and in the wine world it is now rosé that seems to be barking the loudest. Over the past 10 years (2010-2020), the sale of rosé over $7 a bottle in the United States alone has increased fifteenfold, according to BW166, a market research company specializing in alcohol beverages. France has seen comparable sales growth.
However, many wine connoisseurs look at rosé as if it were a fleeting summer fling: refreshing and fun but rarely serious enough to hold their interest. Many are reluctant to pour themselves a full glass of such a "pinkish" wine – a color otherwise regarded as fashionable, romantic and arguably feminine by consumers, especially young female drinkers.
For people who treat wine as a lifetime hobby and even have the privilege to work with it, there is a bridge to cross when it comes to rosé. As our understanding about wine deepens and our connection with it becomes more fully entrenched, inevitably we tend to get stuck in our ivory towers, beholden to the appreciation process and believing ours alone to be an acquired, principled taste. Wine is, after all, an enthralling drink, as intellectual and intuitive as it is counterintuitive. We realize palate is essential, and so are education and experience.
But before wine becomes an appreciation, it is a lifestyle. Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that it is just a drink. While wine professionals and aficionados can gush about how unique flavors grow on the palate and strive to find the most precise vocabulary to describe visual, olfactory and gustatory senses, average consumers may have a much lower involvement with liquid in the glass, often viewing it as a commodity.
